


Minions

by DaltonG



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Disability, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:36:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaltonG/pseuds/DaltonG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wealthy recluse has round-the-clock assistants to attend to her every need. But what happens if she falls in love with an employee she depends on for survival?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Work in progress. No beta (wanna volunteer?) Explicit bits to come.

"Would you like something to drink before we get started? Jonathan can get you something." 

"No, thanks, he already asked me." 

"Okay, then we'll dive right in." I crossed my legs, one under the other, on the sofa. It was important to me to be comfortable from the very start. If they couldn't handle that, it was very important to find that out quickly. 

Of course, Lloyd had been extensively researched well before he ended up across from me in a final interview appointment. Jonathan and Simon had met with him first, after selecting his name from the tiny group of five candidates that had ever been approached for this position in the first place. No monster.com for this type of job. Multiple references had been provided and grilled, and background checks--both legal and one of my own devising--had been run. But none of that compared to an in-person chemistry test. 

"Why do you want to work for me?" 

Lloyd blinked and took in a deliberate breath. 

"To be honest, ma'am, I'm not sure I do." 

Huh. That was a new approach. 

"I appreciate the honorific, but it's probably better if you call me Janine." 

"Okay, Janine. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing here. I was discharged two months ago, and a week ago I was contacted by your--Jonathan?--who was rather insistent that I do a series of interviews. He's tried to explain what the job is, but maybe you'd better tell me in your own words." 

Polite, but take-charge and no-nonsense. So far so good. 

"I require around-the-clock assistance. I lost my third assistant two months ago and while Jonathan and Simon are amazing, non-stop twelve-hour shifts are not good for anyone's health." (Including my own, I thought. Between taking a day to fend for myself each week and trying to soft-pedal my requirements, my productivity had fallen significantly.) 

"What kind of assistance are we talking about, exactly?" 

"An excellent question, one that I'm sure Jonathan and Simon have already aptly described, but I'll outline it for you again." I watched to see his reaction to the gentle rebuff; his expression did not change from one of bland attention. 

"You will be on duty for 9 hours a day; 30 minutes to debrief before your shift and 30 minutes after with an 8 hour shift. You will have to grab food and use the facilities in between your duties, and all personal tasks have to be taken care of outside of shift hours. No personal calls, no doctor's visits, etcetera. During those 8 hours you will be doing whatever I need you to do to help me. This can include writing letters, running errands, making phone calls, giving massages, interacting with the rest of the staff, letting me bounce ideas off of you, heavy lifting." The more personal item of "massage" should have been no surprise if he'd been paying attention to Jonathan and Simon but I needed to see his reaction. There was none; that wasn't necessarily a good sign. 

"So, mainly secretarial duties." 

"60-70 percent boils down to that, yes." 

"Ma'am--Janine, I'm a soldier. As you probably know, I was discharged against my wishes after a fourth tour in Afghanistan. I don't think I'm qualified for what you're asking." It sounded like a nice way to say that what I was asking was far beneath him. 

"You're definitely overqualified for the secretarial portions." He had a bachelor's in English from Wesleyan, including multiple published papers before he joined up, and his communication skills were impeccable. His diplomatic skills were well-documented both in university and in the service. "But this job is more than secretarial. I am partially disabled; I'm a recluse; and I'm very, very wealthy. In order to do my work I need someone with me around the clock, someone I can trust completely with my physical, emotional, and intellectual needs. The work I am doing has deep, long-term implications for our national security and the perpetuation of our species. I assure you that helping me do this work is satisfying and is never dull." 

Lloyd looked down and to the left. Because he was left-handed, I knew this meant he was processing what I had said. None of it should have been new to him; I suspected that he was, like me, evaluating the non-verbal energy between us. So far I wasn't terribly impressed, myself. 

I sipped my tea--Awake with lemon--and waited. After a few minutes, he looked up and met my eyes steadily. 

"I don't really know what to do with myself now. I've been crafted into someone who is on high-alert 24/7 and suddenly I'm supposed to go to the grocery and do laundry and watch sit-coms with commercials for cars. The Army doesn't make a life for veterans. Everything I've looked into doing is ridiculously mudane. None of it makes any sense to me. 

I don't think this is a good fit. But I don't fit anywhere. And your assistants Jonathan and Simon seem to think this could be good for both of us. I'm willing to give it a try if you are." 

This was not the most enthusiastic application I had ever had. Jonathan had, in fact, been eager to demonstrate his cunnilingual skills in order to get the position and I had to put him off. The problem was that Lloyd was gorgeous. He had kind, tired eyes in a worn face that slotted straight into one of my types. Damn Jonathan and Simon, they knew me far too well. But it was the hint of desperation in a voice well-schooled to hide any and all emotion that cinched it for me. 

"As you know, we have all new assistants do a one-week trial. You'll shadow with Jonathan and Simon to learn the ropes and we'll find out if we're compatible. You'll get full pay for the week, whether we decide to sign a contract afterwards or not. I'd like you to start tomorrow if you can." 

"What time should I be here?" 

"Sixteen hundred hours; you'll do an eight hour shift, the last four of Jonathan's and the first four of Simon's." 

Jonathan, who'd been watching via video feed in the other room, walked in the door at this point. Lloyd stood up and Jonathan shook his hand with an almost too-gleeful smile and said "Welcome aboard! Come outside, I'll get you set up for tomorrow." 

The door closed and I sighed deeply. As hard as I tried to be confident about these things, they really terrified me. This was why I had assitants in the first place. Damn that fucking cancer in Trevor anyway. He'd hung in there until the chemo started; then we all decided he had to quit and take care of himself. Of course I was paying for all medical expenses and a healthy retirement salary as well. I rubbed my hands over my face. Jonathan had said this morning that it was going about as badly as chemo goes, but that the marijuana I made sure he got was helping with the nausea. 

How was Lloyd going to work out? It seemed pretty unlikely that we would see him past next week. But we had to try. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lloyd's first day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WIP...

The first day was rough. I had a presentation in the evening and those are always harrowing for all involved, but there was nothing we could do about the timing, Johnathan and Simon had been toughing it out by themselves for far too long and there was never really a good time to break someone in. 

Creating the presentation was trivial. We'd finished the text and the slideshow a week before and I'd practiced it multiple times. But interacting with others, even via telepresence, was nerve-wracking in the best of circumstances, and this was a particularly important presentation meant to sway hearts and minds to the necessity of intrusive data storage, mining, and sharing, and the audience was a particularly hostile one--a Congressional committee. I was used to preaching to the choir, giving new knowledge to fellow scientists who were eager to hear and open to what I had to say. It was unlikely that my presentation would have any effect on the lawmaking of the newly formed Data Security House Committee, but I had to try--the work of thousands of researchers was depending on the outcome. 

Giving a presentation of this importance meant that I was a complete emotional wreck on Lloyd's first day. Jonathan had spent the morning wrangling me, finding a balance of anxeity meds to keep me from cancelling but to also keep me from passing out, making sure I ate, and massaging me almost non-stop while fending off all normal business calls. He refused to allow me to check email; texts were turned off. He parked me in front of my emergency movie, "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" in order to take a half-hour to brief Lloyd and get him his temporary setup of computer access and security passwords that would be changed at the end of the week if he was let go. 

Lloyd came into my office and sat down on the loveseat precisely where he had been sitting the day before for the interview. This time he had a bottle of water with him. 

"Can I get you anything, Janine?" 

"Yeah, get me out of this fucked-up committee presentation. This is going to be a cluster-fuck. I'm going to lose all credibility, the data community is going to lose all its funding, and the Data Security bill is going to pass without a single vote against it." The movie wasn't working. 

Jonathan slipped behind me and began rubbing my shoulders again. 

"You can only do what you can do, Janine. If anyone can convince them, it's going to be you. Stop thinking about the outcome and just let the process happen," Jonathan murmured in his eminently soothing voice, mouth close to my ear. He deliberately breathed loudly and, taking the hint, I tried to slow my breathing to match his. Four in, eight out. The pattern of an anthropod that was NOT running from a tiger for dear life. 

I saw Lloyd look questioningly at Jonathan. 

"Lloyd, why don't you come sit next to Janine and help her regulate her breathing," Jonathan suggested. 

"No, I know, why don't I give Lloyd the presentation?" 

"Janine, you've rehearsed this enough. We're at the point where more rehearsal is going to make you more nervous." 

"No, seriously, he needs to see it, he needs to know what kind of cause he's working for, and what if I forget it by tonight?" 

"It would be impossible for you to forget it. Not only do you have the patter memorized but you have complete notes written out." 

"But what if Lloyd can think of some questions we haven't thought of?" 

Before Jonathan could object again, Lloyd interrupted. 

"I'd really like to see it, if that's okay." 

"See?!" I cried in panicked triumph. 

And so we went through the presentation. I had put it together in modified pecha kucha style; 30 minutes of non-stop narration with a new slide every 20 seconds. As I talked over the slides, holding the notes on actual printed paper which I never looked at but shifted unerringly as I finished each page--I really did have it memorized--Lloyd quietly slipped his arm around my waist, watching the screen and not my face. I glanced at him once and his expression was one of intense concentration. 

I finished the last slide and took a deep breath, feeling calmer than I had in a week. 

"That wasn't too bad, was it?" I said. 

"If they don't fund your initiative then they deserve what they get," Lloyd said quietly. As he pulled his arm back I realized for the first time that he had had it around me at all. 

I looked around at Jonathan, who had a huge grin on his face. 

"At the risk of jinxing it, Lloyd had you breathing properly through that entire thing," he told me. 

I frowned. "Huh?" 

"Yeah, it's better that you don't look into that too deeply. Lloyd, make sure you are by her side tonight at 2000." Lloyd nodded solemnly and moved back to the loveseat. 

The presentation went flawlessly and the bill never made it out of committee. Funding was restored. The camera was positioned right on my face so that no one was ever aware of Lloyd pressed against me, thigh-to-thigh, his arm warm around my waist, his breathing deep enough to influence me, unobtrusive enough to go unnoticed by the mic. 

When I went to bed that night, Simon sat beside me and brushed my hair back from my forehead. 

"I heard it went very well," he said gently. 

"Yeah, I think it actually did." 

"What do you think of Lloyd so far?" 

"Well, kinda hard to say after just a few hours, but I wouldn't kick him out of the house for spilling the milk." 

Simon gave me a look. 

"It's been a long week, shut up." 

"It's been a long two months," he said quietly. 

"Yeah. Any word from Trevor?" 

"Nothing today. His caretaker is supposed to check in with us tomorrow." 

"Did we send flowers this week?" 

"No, the scent is contraindicated right now. We sent a mixed plant pot this week." 

"Too bad; he does so love flowers." 

"There'll be time enough for that when he finishes the chemo." Simon bent down and kissed my forehead. It spoke to the years we'd been together, the continuing blurring of lines from employee to family. I was grateful once again that he was a Kinsey 1; no chance of awkward sexual complications with Simon. No matter how many times I'd thought about it. 

Lloyd came to the doorway, unsure of the protocol. 

"Good night, Janine." 

"Good night, Lloyd. Thanks for your help today." 

"It was my pleasure." A small smile graced his face for a moment, like a ray of sun through a break in dense fog, and disappeared just as quickly. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lloyd learns more about Janine.

Lloyd held my face between his large hands and licked across my lips,   
not pressing inside, not yet, just wetting them, just letting me know we   
were kissing and it was about to get more intense.

I had the fingers of one hand tangled in his short grey-blone hair and the other was pressed flat against his back, feeling his spine, smoothing across his skin, noting the irregularities that must have been scar tissue. I scratched lightly and he hummed against my mouth but still kept his lips closed, savoring. 

I broke the kiss and pushed my face into his neck. 

"Lloyd, Lloyd, please fuck me, please, I need you." 

I looked into his face. He smiled but didn't answer. And then my phone rang. What fucked up timing. Who was calling me now? I pressed the button to ignore the call but it kept ringing. I picked the phone up and pressed the off button but it continued to ring. What the fuck was wrong with this thing? 

I opened my eyes and realized my phone alarm was going off. After too many moments of disorientation I realized I was alone in my bed, the day after the Congressional presentation. I should have been utterly relieved to be past that obstacle but instead I groaned, remembering the dream. Having a dream like that after only one day of employment was a very bad sign. I should give Lloyd his week's pay and send him on his way. 

"Good morning, good morning! It's great to wake up early! Good morning, good morning to you!" warbled Jonathan as he opened the door carrying a tray with my breakfast. 

"That doesn't scan," I grumbled. 

"I don't care," he said cheerfully. 

"You're in a fucking good mood for such a godawful time of day." 

"And you know why?" 

"I do not WANT to know why." 

Jonathan ignored me. Had he always been this insolent? 

"You are done with your horrible presentation, we have a nice easy day, and Lloyd is coming this afternoon! Help is on the way, I tell you, help is on the way!" 

I groaned and pressed a pillow over my face. I should call Lloyd right this very minute and give him his walking papers. Jonathan sat on the edge of the bed, pulled the sheets off my feet and began massaging them. 

"Oatmeal this morning. Eat up!" 

I could call Lloyd later. The foot rub felt too good to interrupt. I sat up and turned on the news and started eating. 

\-- 

When Lloyd appeared that afternoon my stupid heart actually fluttered. I mean it actually felt like it might have skipped a beat. He was wearing jeans and a blue button-down shirt. Unless my assistants had to go out somewhere formal on my behalf, we stuck to casual clothing for the most part--whatever made them the most comfortable. Simon preferred loud cotton pants and soft tees; Jonathan was a kakhi shorts and polo shirt kind of guy, regardless of the weather. Lloyd's jeans were clearly brand-new, no fading or wearing of any kind, and his shirt was crisply starched. I suspected civilian clothing was still strange to him. I wondered if he had ever worn skirts at Wesleyan; I'd heard rumors that was one of the ways the guys tried to fit into the feminista regime in the 80s. 

"Lloyd, did you ever wear skirts at Wesleyan?" 

He blinked slowly, then grinned slightly. "Uh, no. That was never my thing." 

"The girls must have been so disappointed." 

"Yeah, didn't seem to bother them too much," he said with a smile that could have been suggestive or could have just been polite. How could I be having sex dreams already about someone so impossible to read? It just had to be his appearance and the cachet of being ex-military. I had to admit that military fanfiction got me pretty hot and bothered. 

Well, enough small-talk. "Let's see what you can do with this letter to the AGU on data security that needs to accompany the paper I'm submitting to 'GeoInformatica'. First you need to read the paper and then come up with a reasonable cover letter. Feel free to bastardize from previous similar letters; get Jonathan to show you the folder system." I handed Lloyd a tablet with the relevant draft paper pulled up, and he left for the outer office. I was knee-deep in babysitting some intensive pattern-matching calculations ona dataset that had the sad, now official categorization of "Ginormous Data". When we had moved well past Big Data into true global sharing, various reasonable monikers were suggested at a particular conference panel that should NOT have included free beer, and all were rejected in favor of the facetious "Ginormous Data" that someone wrote on the marker board behind the panelists; it made its way around the community on the net within a day and stuck. It certainly didn't help with federal funding, but then not much did. 

I hadn't worked for pay in years; hadn't had to, which was a blessing because nine-to-five office environments were incompatible with both my bodily abilities and my paralyzing social fear. Medications resulted in social functionality at a huge expense to my intellectual capacity, and it just wasn't worth it. When I was free to stay at home, my productivity was slowed only by my brain-to-computer interface, and over the years that had improved until I was manipulating applications at near the speed of thought via what a layperson might have thought was an EEG hookup. My inheritance made it so that I was no longer tied to the whims of impressing others in order to make money, and my above-genius-level intellect and dedicated time meant that I had helped tie together countless geoscience and extraplanetary datasets and pioneer several pattern-searching algorithms to help understand what it all meant. 

"Janine, Jonathan suggested I bring this in." Lloyd interrupted my deep concentration carrying a tray of dinner. 

"Shit, is it that time?" 

"Evidently." 

"Right, well, gotta fuel the housing." I checked out this evening's offering from the kitchen--looked like chicken piccatta, rice, broccoli, and fresh-made whole wheat rolls. "You and Jonathan should grab something yourselves." 

"Thanks, we ate earlier." 

"Okay, good, glad to hear it," I said absently, already calling up the latest discussion on Less Wrong to read while I ate. I vaguely registered the door closing. 

\-- 

"Is she eating?" Jonathan asked Lloyd. 

"I'm not sure, she accepted the tray?" 

"Shit, no, you have to make sure she actually starts eating. Otherwise she'll forget and you come back two hours later to find congealed glop and you've missed your window. Things go much more smoothly when we keep her blood sugar at a stable level." Jonathan opened the door and sure enough, Janine was staring at the screen, her hands idle in her lap, the food cooling on the table next to her. 

"C'mon, honey, you have to actually eat it in order for it to get inside." He began cutting up the chicken and handed her a bite which she ate without looking. As Lloyd watched, Jonathan stepped back and she continued to eat and read, looking down occasionally to spear her next bite. 

Jonathan stepped back into the outer office and closed the door. "She's really frighteningly brilliant, but oftentimes that comes with complete stupidity when it comes to the mundane things. That's what we're here for. We're here to keep her grounded in her humanity, at least as long as she's trapped in a physical body." 

"Um, what do you mean by that exactly?" 

"Oh, eventually we'll get the technological know-how to upload her and then she won't need silly things like food, or sleep, or love, or human kindness." Jonathan's tone was both fond and bitter at the same time. 

"It sounds like you really believe that." 

Jonathan looked up at Lloyd. "What, the uploading? Yeah, sure, it's coming. Me, I'm going to keep a physical presence, I just enjoy too many things about being physical. You can almost understand why someone like Janine would want to leave that behind, her body has betrayed her so much in this life, but me, I like good old human interaction and stuff like sex and eating. Hell, sometimes even a good piss can be enjoyable." 

"What exactly is her disability?" Lloyd asked. It hadn't been clearly stated in any of the introductory literature or any of the interviews, and it certainly wasn't visually obvious. 

"Lungs. She has such severe asthma that she can't walk more than a few feet without a crippling asthma attack. The damage over the years has left her with something like 50 percent capacity. That blower near her desk? It puts out hyperoxygenated air. It's fairly targeted--nothing that would bother you or me, but enough that she doesn't have to think about working to breathe. That's why she'll never have a house with stairs in it. And wait until you have to do an outing. That's an absolute nightmare." 

Lloyd nodded, seemed to ponder this for a few minutes, and then turned back to the paper he was writing. He'd had to look up a lot to get through the journal article, but the cover letter was trivial work, especially given the prototypes he had to work from. As he typed, writing almost automatically, he was thinking about what he'd learned about his strange new potential employer.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to the DMV. An Epi-pen.

"This is stupid. I don't see why we're doing this." 

"Because you've got to have valid ID and this is the easiest way to get it." 

"Going to the DMV is the easiest way to do ANYTHING? Are you mad?" 

I was really cranky. I hadn't driven myself anywhere in five years. That's what I had assistants for...to drive me, or better yet, to go get whatever I needed. The DMV was insisting that in order to continue to retain my driver's license, I had to renew in person this time. I was not pleased. 

"C'mon, Janine, let's just do it and get it over with and then it will be DONE." Simon was basically dressing me by forcing a shirt over my head and dragging my arms through the holes as if I was a child. I guess I was acting like one. Lloyd was sitting on the bed watching the proceedings with a barely concealed smirk. 

"Fuck! Fuck. This. Shit. I tell you." 

"Yes dear. We will take you for ice cream afterwards. You like ice cream." 

Getting me out of the house was always kind of a flurry of controlled chaos. Controlled by my assistants; chaotic by me. I never knew where anything was: my bag, my ID, my inhalers, a snack bar, water, money, credit cards, SHOES--most of the time I didn't even know where my own shoes were. I paid a lot of money so that I didn't have to remember any of that but the anxiety of leaving the house led me to quiz my companions again and again in case we forgot something. 

Finally I was bundled into the car for the very despised trip to the DMV. I, of course, did not drive. Lloyd didn't say a word as he strapped himself into the back seat. I complained the entire fifteen minute trip. Inside was the usual zoo; even though we had an appointment, we had to wait a good hour after the appointment time, to accommodate all those non-appointment-having folks, I suppose. Simon kept me busy handing me things to read or sign on my tablet; Lloyd sat without complaint on my other side on the hard molded plastic chairs that were all linked together lest someone steal one for the comfort of their own dining room. 

Things actually went pretty smoothly until I was finally called up to sign the piece of paper and have my new picture taken. Unfortunately, someone was called up to the booth next to mine with his assistance dog. 

I wasn't going to go through this again, so I shushed Simon and signed the paper and stood quietly for my picture. That's about all I remember until the hospital. 

\--- 

Janine began wheezing the moment the man in the wheelchair rolled up to the DMV counter, German shepherd beside him in a bright yellow jacket. By the time she and her entourage made it outside, she had to sit on a cement bench, gasping. Lloyd realized her lips had actually turned blue. Simon was already calling the emergency number. 

"Here, give her this," Simon said, handing Lloyd an Epi-pen. Lloyd expertly uncapped it, triggered it, and jammed it in Janine's thigh. Simon's eyes went wide. 

"Used one of those before, have you?" 

"Yeah, had occasion to a few times in Afghanistan," Lloyd answered. He turned Janine's face so that she was looking directly at him, holding her cheeks firmly with both hands. 

"Breathe with me, girl. Slow. Just look in my eyes and do what I'm doing." 

Janine nodded and tried to follow his slow breaths, each inhale sounding like she was breathing around a tidy collection of metal nuts and bolts in her lungs. He kept it slow and steady and didn't seem alarmed by how her eyes glazed over and lost focus even as she held them on his. 

"Ambulance is here," Simon said, a little too loud, pumped full of adrenaline and worry. He strode out, waving his arms. "Stop, stop goddamn it, we're right here!" 

The ambulance backed up a bit but couldn't get near the entrance with the lineup of cars waiting for drivers to take their tests. The paramedics hopped out, opened the back doors, and began to try to wrestle the gurney out. With no success. It was stuck on something. There was arguing and increasingly violent jerks until the driver wrenched her back, groaning. 

Lloyd scooped Janine into his arms without a word. She wrapped an arm around his neck and he carried her to the ambulance. 

"Let's try to get her to the hospital before she passes out, shall we?" he said in a calm voice that seemed to refocus the paramedics. He lifted her into the back of the van and settled her on the narrow padding of the stuck gurney. 

"Keep watching me, Janine. Steady breaths. You're getting plenty of air." She clutched his hand, hard, while the paramedic began hooking up an IV and putting an oxygen mask over her mouth. 

Simon hesitated for a moment. He wasn't used to being the one who rode up front. But it was just for a moment; it was clear Lloyd was in charge of this ride, so he jumped in the passenger seat and yelled at the driver to get moving. 

Later, sitting in the hospital waiting room for the emergency department, Simon noticed that Lloyd was shaking, just slightly. 

"What did you do in Afghanistan, again?" he asked. 

"Foot soldier. But I had some medic training," Lloyd answered, his voice steady, unlike his hands. 

"Good. I'm glad," Simon replied, and the two remained silent until Jonathan showed up in a panic, requiring a full retelling and reassuring and some solid Simon hugs. 

"Thank you for saving our boss," Jonathan said once he'd heard the whole story, holding out his hand to Lloyd. Lloyd looked at his hand for a moment, seeming baffled, but finally shook it. 

"I don't think I did any saving, but I was glad to help out." 

Jonathan looked at him for a long time after they all sat down, thinking they might have been luckier than they realized when they found Lloyd. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this isn't the biggest Mary Sue ever written in that the heroine isn't going to be particularly saving the day or improving anyone or wielding magic swords. No offense intended in this chapter to any EMTs who are fantastic and always there for us and have never, in my experience, been the bungling idiots I needed for this chapter.


End file.
